The Keynes era was a blip, brought on by the necessity of competing with the threat of communism. The wealthy elite are hard-wired to believe in belt-tightening during hard times, and pay-as-you-go at all times except for essential stuff like military imperialism.

The problem for the left is why the victims support Hooverism. That has to do in the U.S. with the decline of the left into a multifaceted identities lobby, which your post unfortunately reflects. And, of course, the right's faux populist exploitation of discontent with the right-wing economics of the Democrats.

There is no need for a new alternative political construct or what the fuck. We know what we need and it's the domestic economic politics of the West of the 1940s to early 1970s (might be nice to end imperialism, too). Worked well, people even in our right-wing-soaked propagandized and anti-intellectual media world know it worked well (so no need for ground-breaking but very likely almost completely disappeared-in-the-media consciousness raising for the new alternative construct), let's do it again.

fairleft